Alexander Medawar "Alex" Garland (born 1970) is a British novelist and screenwriter.

Garland was born in London, England, the son of psychoanalyst Caroline (née Medawar) and political cartoonist Nicholas Garland. His maternal grandparents were zoologist Peter Medawar and author Jean Medawar. Garland attended the independent University College School, in Hampstead, London, and the University of Manchester, where he studied art history.

His first novel, The Beach, was published in 1996 and drew on his experiences as a backpacker. The novel quickly became a cult classic and was made into a film by Danny Boyle, with Leonardo DiCaprio.

The Tesseract, Garland's second novel, was published in 1998. This was also made into a film, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. In 2003, he wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, starring Cillian Murphy. His third novel, The Coma, was published in 2004 and was illustrated with woodcuts by his father.

In 2005, a script for a film adaptation of Halo was written by Alex Garland ... which D. B. Weiss and Josh Olson rewrote during 2006 for a 2008 release. The film has been pushed back to 2012.

In 2007, he wrote the screenplay for the film Sunshine — his third screenplay to be directed by Danny Boyle and the second to star Cillian Murphy. Garland also served as an executive producer on 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later. He is the co-writer on the recently released video game Odyssey to the West for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

He wrote the screenplay for the film Never Let Me Go, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.